Dr. Victoria Tuwilika Shifidi
Research Beyond Disciplines
There is no single truth about water and resource governance. The lawyer, the policymaker, the hydrologist, the elder, the youth, the boy, the girl, the scientist, and the farmer, each of them holds a piece. None holds the whole. The whole emerges only at the confluence. When we stop defending our pieces and instead build bridges between our pieces, we transform societies for the better. Different perspectives do not have to compete. At the confluence, they converge. That is where transformative solutions live, and that is where I work. Thank you for reading, and for bringing your own piece, your own perspective to the conversation.
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Maximizing synergies between state and non-state actors to enhance water governance in the Cubango-Okavango River basin
Abstract
The inherent complexity of governing transboundary social–ecological systems like the Cubango-Okavango River Basin (CORB) has given rise to various governance frameworks like integrated water resource management (IWRM) and adaptive governance. While these may work in theory and some specific contexts, current discordance between formal (state) and informal (non-state) governance systems, especially at the local level, still exists, resulting in significant inequities regarding water resource allocation, use, and sustainability. This research, therefore, is crucial in understanding why the disconnects between state and non-state actors might be present in current governance arrangements and how they influence decision-making processes linked to equitable and sustainable water governance. Through a mixed-method, qualitative approach, this paper aimed to examine how state and non-state actors influence water governance in the CORB from a Namibian perspective and explore current challenges and opportunities in governance structures to understand strategic intervention points for enhancing more just and sustainable governance outcomes. Data was collected from 63 participants through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, and an actor-mapping questionnaire to understand key actors involved in the Namibian portion of the CORB and to determine the critical networks and relationships between them for enhancing water governance in the basin. Embedded within a grounded theory approach, thematic analysis was used to analyze data using Atlas.ti; a descriptive analysis was used to graphically organize, summarize, and present field data using Microsoft Excel; and a narrative analysis documented the participants' personal stories of water governance.
The study identified key water governance breakdown points between state and non-state actors, including resource grabs and inadequate bottom-up approaches. The study further found that the active participation of non-state actors in the water governance of the CORB is imperative for maximizing contextualized synergies between state and non-state actors in transboundary water governance.
Impact of flooding on rural livelihoods of the Cuvelai Basin in Northern Namibia
The recurrent Cuvelai Basin floods are both a blessing and a curse. This article discusses the consequences that flooding has on rural livelihoods of the Cuvelai Basin in Northern Namibia. The combined flooding episodes in the last few years had a substantial impact on local residents and the Namibian economy, with estimated losses of approximately US$136.4 million (NAD1364 million) in direct damage and US$78.2 million (NAD780 million) in indirect losses. The consequences of flooding amounted to ~1% of the country’s 2009 Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Rural residents in the Cuvelai Basin live predominantly on small farm holdings (‘ekove’) allocated by local village leadership, and depend heavily on subsistence farming for their livelihoods.
Since higher-lying ground with soil best suited for crop production becomes scarcer, residents are allocated land in low-lying areas which are smaller and more susceptible to floods. The destruction of crops, farm and grazing land, trees and livestock, by floods and similar disasters is of a huge concern. The study sought to assess the impacts of flooding that place residents at risk, and socio-economic conditions that lead to vulnerability. Qualitative data was collected using questionnaires for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The qualitative data was recoded and some of it coded in SPSS and STATISTICA to enable statistical analysis of the results. Qualitative responses are in turn partly used to substantiate the quantitative results. Residents of the Cuvelai Basin heavily rely on subsistence agriculture to sustain their livelihoods. The impacts of flooding on animal and plants are thus discussed. Key words: Cuvelai Basin, rural livelihoods, flood risk management.
Water Crisis: Is Climate Change the Perfect Scapegoat?
The one-sided global debate on climate change has indirectly crippled critical thinking and service delivery across many sectors. In 2006, a former UK secretary of state compared climate change sceptics to terrorists, who should be censored. Several others have labelled climate change sceptics as a threat to humanity, who should be tried before the courts. Calls to dominate discussions with climate change advocates as opposed to sceptics have been made. The culture of not critically questioning climate change has been promoted. As a result, the wider public has been conditioned to create a huge backlash at sceptics.
While taking cognisance of the pressure exerted on water resources by climate change, our current water crisis seems to emanate more from poor management. Climate change has overshadowed the real cause of the water crisis, such as social demographics, land use, governance, lack of proactiveness, ignorance, as well as lack of community participation. Climate change excuses in cases where situations could have been prevented have become unquestionable reasons for a lack of service delivery, and communities are fed only with this one-sided and biased notion, which they accept with no qualms.
We have seemingly taken advantage of the climate change concept in our attempt to condition the audience and steer the current water crisis discussion around physical water scarcity, as opposed to economic water scarcity. As much as Namibia is a dry country – its major rivers are shared, and rainfall highly unpredictable – we have always known these facts, and they should no longer be the departure point for discussion. Hydrological data reveals that ...
Enhancing Rural-Urban Synergies for Food Security
“IT WAS just a village, then the cranes came, they swallowed the farms and villages of our neighbours. We’ve been offered a new place to live, but it won’t replace what we have here. This is our home.” These are the words of a Chinese farmer whose agricultural land is threatened by rapid urbanisation, with over 160 million farmers in that country having lost their land to urbanisation between 2004 and 2012 alone. In the US, an equivalent of seventeen hectares of cropland is lost to developments every hour. Egypt risks losing 60% of its maize production, and Nigeria 17% of its rice as fertile land is engulfed by cities.
In recent years, Namibia’s demand for urban land saw significant communal land being converted into urban land. Once agricultural land is paved and converted, we have lost it forever, and so did we the food which came off it. We have bought into an unstoppable urbanisation fallacy, for no society can survive without the ability to feed itself. My village neighbour just on the other side of the ‘Oshana’, has in recent years had his and his neighbours’ fields demarcated as townland. Their families lived and cultivated here for many years, but soon, they may have to pave the way for the built environment. It’s evident how villages at the peripheries of towns and settlements are having it the worst. Not only from fear of losing their cropland, but also fear of becoming even more vulnerable to floods following relocation as high-lying land becomes increasingly scarce. It is a double blow to the small-holder farmers. For many of the poor farmers here, it’s a matter of when and not if they’ll have to move. In fact, some have already felt the brunt.
Neighbourhoods and family friendships shuttered, a sense of belonging destroyed, heritage denied, livelihoods and food production systems interrupted, and household food security threatened. Wherever they may move, development may follow them as urban insatiable need and greed grow. They have entered a cycle of forced migration and heightened legally-backed vulnerability, and have become immigrants on what was once their own land. Fertile soils have always attracted human civilisation. Globally, over 60% of the world’s best croplands are located on the urban peripheries, facing an even greater risk of being eaten up by urban expansion. Allocating fertile land to developments other than agricultural has huge repercussions on food security at both household and national level.
In as much as urbanisation is not entirely a bad thing, amicable linkages in which rural and urban can co-exist and complement each other need to be actively sought. The two are inextricably linked. Inhabitants of rural areas are often dependent on cities for employment, healthcare and emergency services. Cities depend on rural areas for food and other ecosystem services.
Perhaps it’s the poor soils which should rather be allocated for pockets of urban areas, while at the same time encouraging household food production to co-exist with urbanisation in already appraised areas. A recent global study estimated that by 2030, urban areas will consume other city-skill million hectares of cropland, of which 80% would be from Asia and Africa alone. As the population is forecast to increase to eight and a half billion by 2030, there will be many more mouths to feed. However, the world’s best and most productive croplands would’ve already been eaten up by expanding megacities, further stifling competition between agricultural and urban land. As compared to isolated towns, the merging of multiple areas, such as those of Helao Nafidi, for instance, into a contiguous urban area, risks large tracts of cropland being swallowed up by the built environment.
**Victoria Twulilka Shifidi is a government hydrologist. Views expressed herein are her own.
10 FRIDAY 7 JULY 2017